Outing . hite, dotted here and therewith barren brown streaks and rockspires whose weird shapes rose, sentinel-like, toward the sky. Jerry Rubble was behind the bar inthe Lone Wolf, wiping the alkali dustfrom a whiskey bottle, when he becameaware of the arrival of a , following his usual custom,he placed the bottle on the crude side-board, chucked the towel upon a hook,and strode to the door. The sun hadreached its zenith and was swimming,a shimmering disk of molten silver, downthe great arc of white, blurred sky; theheat devils danced on the baked alkali;little whirlwinds of
Outing . hite, dotted here and therewith barren brown streaks and rockspires whose weird shapes rose, sentinel-like, toward the sky. Jerry Rubble was behind the bar inthe Lone Wolf, wiping the alkali dustfrom a whiskey bottle, when he becameaware of the arrival of a , following his usual custom,he placed the bottle on the crude side-board, chucked the towel upon a hook,and strode to the door. The sun hadreached its zenith and was swimming,a shimmering disk of molten silver, downthe great arc of white, blurred sky; theheat devils danced on the baked alkali;little whirlwinds of dust rose and swirledin a wind that blighted growing things,crumpling and withering and curlingthem into the hot sand. Even in the Lone Wolf the heat wasalmost unbearable, and as Jerry camearound the end of the bar and ap-proached the door he wiped the sweatfrom his face with the tail of his he reached the door he sawa man, seated upon a pony, looking athim with a mild curiosity. The man [566]. ? -?? ? ??;-.: >??- ?? ??:??????? . ? HALF AN HOUR LATER THE SPECIAL MESSENGER DEPARTED FROM THE LONE WOLF was evidently a puncher, for he wasrigged out in the approved manner ofthe period—chaps, broad brim, knottedscarf at the throat, high heel boots, andcartridge belt. Rubbles glance waslanguid, but it took in all these details inone sweep. In addition, Rubble notedsomething else. The man was broadshouldered, lithe, and muscular, and hewore two guns, the bottoms of theirholsters carefully tied down. Two-gun, Rubble remarked men-tally, with a longer breath than ordi-narily. From a day two years before,when he had been shot through the hipin a clash with a two-gun man he had THE SPECIAL MESSENGER 567 felt a sort of chill when meeting a manof that type. But a customer was a cus-tomer, and Rubble was not a man to de-liberately place a check upon the goldthat flowed into his cash-drawer. There-fore he fought down the chill and forceda smile th
Size: 1167px × 2140px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade, booksubjectsports, booksubjecttravel
